


If only

by thesweetpianowritingdownmylife



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Cuddling & Snuggling, Don't read if you are part of the CR cast or crew, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, only background shadowgast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22308745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife/pseuds/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife
Summary: Nott kissed Caleb because she thought she would be someone else by the end of the day, but she isn't.And now there are consequences.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Nott & Caleb Widogast, Nott/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 11
Kudos: 149





	If only

**Author's Note:**

> The second part of episode 91 really broke me, I guess. This has barely been edited, and it was written in an emotional haze. No beta we die like men.

She can barely see. Disappointment clogs her lungs, she can taste it in her tongue. She doesn’t realize that she’s screaming in rage until she feels Caleb’s arms around her, his voice pleading, “ _Schatzi_ , calm down, please, I’m here, we will try again, this is just an obstacle, I am sure that…”

“That BITCH!” she yells from the deepest parts of her soul.

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry.” Caleb picks her up in his arms, cradling her close.

“What happened?” Essek is crouching next to them, one hand hovering in the air close to her, not daring to touch. “Are you hurt?”

Nott can’t breathe. She fists at Caleb’s tunic, ripping it with her claws. The claws she’s stuck with, because it didn’t work, because that woman did something to her and cursed her to be this hideous thing forever. She buries her head on Caleb’s chest and screams again. Vaguely, she can feel the flow of Jester’s healing magic across her body, but it does nothing, because she’s not injured. It’s not a good enough reason to stop screaming.

“I…I need to take her home, she needs to be home,” Caleb says as he stands up. Essek nods, placing a hand on each of them, and transports them to the foyer of their house.

“I don’t know where her room is, I’m sorry,” he says, expression vulnerable and lost. At least Nott has stopped screaming, although she is breathing heavily, a faint wheezing sound escaping between her teeth.

“This is fine. This is more than enough, Essek.” Caleb presses his forehead against Essek’s briefly, careful not to crush Nott between their bodies. “Please, stay close.”

“Of course,” he promises as a faint blush colors his cheeks. “Anything you need.”

He follows as Caleb takes Nott up the stairs and into her room. Caleb sits her down on the bed and tries to pull away, but her hands don’t release the death grip on his clothes.

“I am not leaving you. I need to take off your shoes, and mine,” he says in a gentle tone. “Can I do that?”

She reluctantly lets go and watches him go down in one knee. He grabs her legs delicately, one at a time, and pulls the boots free from her feet; then he sits down to discard his own. Once it’s done he embraces her again, pulling her towards the centre of the bed, and he lies down spooning her, body curled around her as if wanting to protect her from the world.

Essek stands next to Nott’s side of the bed, not daring to come closer. He looks at them with worry, and a slight tinge of something else. Longing, perhaps?

“What do you need, _Schatzi_?” Caleb asks in a low murmur. “Do you want him to stay?”

She shakes her head, eyes unseeing, only vaguely conscious that there is someone else in the room with them.

Caleb looks up, an apology ready in his lips, but Essek shakes his head as well. “That’s alright,” he says with an understanding smile, “I will go back to the others and tell them you’re taking care of her.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

Essek nods and walks away.

Nott has relaxed a little. The blind-hot rage that possessed her has abated, and now she can feel nothing but exhaustion. She takes a few deep breaths, willing her heart to stop beating as if it were going to jump out of her chest, and cradles Caleb’s hand against her belly. She is home; he is here with her, and everything is going to be okay. Maybe it was foolish, to think it would be successful in the first try, but Caleb is smart; he will find a solution.

Her wizard is silent behind her, waiting for her to process her grief. She is grateful for his patience; any other of her friends might have prodded her to talk, but he was content to just be there for her, around her, and not even ask her why she had kissed him before starting the ritual.

Shit. Fuck. Balls. She had _kissed_ him.

It was supposed to be one last hurrah, one last goodbye to the unrequited feelings she had been nursing and that she was ready to discard along with this disgusting body. She had hoped that her transformation would be too distracting for anyone to remember and ask questions later.

 _How do I fix this?_ She scrambles to find an answer, anxiety mounting in her chest, accelerating her heart once again.

He notices the change in her breathing. “It’s okay,” he says, giving her body a reassuring squeeze. “We will figure it out.”

“I’msorrythatIkissedyou,” she bursts out, and wants to kick herself in the head right after. _You don’t fix it like this, dumbass_.

Caleb stiffens behind her. She’s pretty sure he’s stopped breathing.

“It wasn’t…” she sputters, “you don’t have to, to do anything about it. It was silly. It was a mistake.” She closes her eyes tightly, as if bracing for an attack.

He tightens his grasp around her and breathes out shakily. A tense silence stretches between them, threatening to suffocate her with embarrassment. At least Caleb doesn’t seem disgusted with her; he’s not moving away, he has been touching her since the spell failed. He can’t be too mad at her, right?

She relaxes a bit when he kisses the top of her head. “Why did you kiss me, Nott?” he asks in a whisper.

The question tenses her right back. She browses through her mind for an acceptable excuse. But there’s no reason to lie, now, and besides, she doesn’t want to. Not to him.

“Being Nott has been…different. Before, I had never gone farther than my village, and now I’ve been all over and I’ve done incredible things, _we’ve_ done incredible things, we…” She struggles to put her thoughts into words. “In a way, it’s like being another person entirely, even if I’m still me. And this version of me, this Nott, didn’t get married to Yeza, would most likely never see him again, in fact, and when she met you…” she sighs, closing her eyes, “when _I_ met you, I thought you were very handsome.”

Caleb makes a disbelieving noise, something strangled at the back of his throat, but he doesn’t interrupt her.

“Then we escaped that prison and we became…everything. You were my rock, the one who kept me out of trouble, the only one who didn’t treat me like a monster. Can you blame me, really? For falling for you?”

“That was a long time ago, though,” he deflects. “Before the Nein. Before you had more people who l–liked you, as you are.” His voice is thick with denial, with self-deprecation. He doesn’t think he deserves her, and it breaks her heart a little.

“It’s not the same. You know it’s not.” She sounds defeated.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” There’s a pause, so long that she thinks maybe he has fallen asleep. “Why did you kiss me, Nott?” he repeats, a bit more insistent this time.

She grits her teeth. _Fine, then_. “To say goodbye. Because I was not going to be Nott anymore; I was going to be Veth, and Veth is not allowed to love you. Not romantically, at least.” She pauses, angrily brushing a tear out of her eye, and continues in a cheerful, yet watery, tone. “But it’s fine, right? It’s not like you could ever love me in that way, so it doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

Caleb tightens the arm around her waist once more, pulling her closer. He doesn’t reply.

It takes her a beat, but suddenly she understands, and the resulting pain in her chest feels like a knife. “Oh, _Caleb_.” She winces internally at how her voice is dripping with pity. He deserves better than that. “But…don’t you like Essek?” she asks, hoping to get him to change the topic.

“I do. Like him.” It’s the first time he has said so in so many words, and it seems to take an effort to admit it. “I’m curious about him, and the potential of…us, together. In many ways. But what I feel for him doesn’t hold a candle to how I feel about you.” His breath hitches, he sounds close to tears. “How can you think…that I wouldn’t love you, in any way possible? In what world?”

“But…you…” she fumbles, a knot blocking her throat.

“People might not have looked at me like I was a monster when we met, but I was one. I knew that perfectly, but you…you made me forget that. You made me focus on something that wasn’t punishing myself, or trying to atone. I…” his voice breaks, “I wouldn’t be alive without you. And I would have kissed you back today, or I would have asked you to be mine a long time ago, if only, if only, if…”

 _If only you weren’t married. If only you didn’t have a child, a family waiting for you on the other side of the continent_. He doesn’t say those things but she hears them anyway.

There’s another moment of silence. She hears him sniffle.

“I wanted to stay by your side forever. Even if it meant giving up on my plans of fixing my mistakes.” He’s blubbering now. She wants to turn around to face him and offer him comfort, but he is gripping her too tightly. “You were my partner.”

“I still am!” she says vehemently.

“Until the spell succeeds. And then you’ll leave.” He can’t hide the accusation in his voice, but it makes him flounder with guilt. “And it’s okay, you _have to_ leave, I understand. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“I want to stay,” she confesses, and it leaves her out of breath. Now it’s her turn to be engulfed by guilt, a voice in her head calling her a bad mother, a bad wife. The knot in her throat chokes her again. “But I can’t.”

His grip releases, and she manages to turn around. There are tear tracks on his face, and he is looking at her with understanding and infinite amounts of love. She wants to kiss him again, but it would only hurt him; she wraps her arms around his neck instead, buries her head on the crook of his shoulder.

“We still have time, until we figure out the spell.” He swallows thickly. “If you want…”

“No, Caleb,” she denies him, voice gentle.

She wants, by the gods, she wants so much. But it wouldn’t be fair to anyone. He nods; she doesn’t think the offer was all that serious. Just a last desperate attempt to fix whatever she broke with the kiss. But that’s not the way to do it, and they both know it.

She hugs him tightly against her body. “Will you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he assures her fervently, his hand rubbing up and down her back.

“You could come with me. Not now,” she adds hastily when his body stiffens again, “but down the road, when you have had enough adventures, or you have found a way to save your parents. You know, if you ever want to settle down.”

He mulls it over for a minute. “What about Yeza?”

She scoffs. “This is not an offer to come do the hanky-panky with me behind my husband’s back, it’s an offer to join our family. He wouldn’t mind if you came to live with us, and Luc adores you already.” Her heart melts when she remembers Caleb interacting with her son.

“I think I would like that.” He sighs. “To be honest, I couldn’t wish for a better future.”

“Even without the hanky-panky?” She smirks.

He smiles indulgently. “Even without that.”

“Damn. I was hoping you would try to convince me.”

He laughs, a short, fragile sound. “Oh, Nott. You really are something special.” He pulls back from their embrace and regards her with that soft smile that he never seems to direct at anybody else. “I would be honored to be a part of your family.”

She kisses his nose and turns around again, trying to hide her blush. _Keep it in your pants, girl_.

“You know,” he clears his throat, “I could also seduce the pants off Yeza and then we could all do the hanky-panky together.”

She hits his hand, pretending to be scandalized. “You will leave my husband alone, you home wrecker.” She’s laughing, some of the tension finally leaving her body. When she gets her giggles under control, she turns her head to look at him with a teasing smirk. “What about Essek though? How about you seduce _his_ pants off? I don’t think it’s gonna take much effort.”

Caleb hides his head on the pillow and groans.

Nott suddenly blanches. “Wait…shit. He saw us kiss. Balls. I should give him the mommy speech, to convince him that there’s nothing funky going on.”

“The mommy speech?” Caleb comes up from his place of hiding to give her a confused look.

“Yeah, it’s something that I came up with to make our friends stop treating me like a child. I told them that our relationship is like that of a mother and a son. And they bought it, too!” she says with a disbelieving scoff.

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “You think telling him that you see me as your son after he saw you kissing me on the lips will make things _less_ funky?”

“Yeah! What’s wrong with my plan?”

He blinks at her several times. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He pauses, frowning a little. “But there is no rush, I am not…ready, for things to go that way.” He closes his eyes and nuzzles the side of her face.

“I won’t say anything, then,” she says, a bit subdued, “but…Caleb?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t be afraid of going after what you want. You deserve to be happy.” _Even if it’s not with me_.

Caleb hugs her tighter. “I am a very lucky man, to have you as my friend.”

She smiles. “Not as lucky as I am to have you.” It hurts a little, but she is at peace.

Caleb is the smartest guy in the world. He will find the way to change her back. And eventually they will be together, no matter in what form. What more could she ask for?


End file.
